Marie Curie

Chemist and Physicist

Lived from November 7, 1867 to July 4, 1934

Training: Marie attended Flying University, one of the few schools that was willing to teach female students. In 1891, she continued her studies at the Sorbonne where she studied Physics and the Mathematical Sciences. This is also where she met her husband, Pierre Curie. Marie later became the Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, and earned her Doctor of Science degree in 1903.

Accomplishments: Marie is most famous for her research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields (physics and chemistry), and the only person to win in multiple sciences! She earned the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and physicist Henri Becquerel in 1903 and was the sole winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911. Her researched focused on isolating radioactive isotopes and she discovered two elements, polonium and radium!

Fun Fact: A unit used to measure radioactivity is a curie (Ci) named in honor of Marie and her husband!